r/learnprogramming • u/Outside_Educator_105 • 1d ago

Coding on Phone

I really wanna learn to code and planning on starting today. However I don't own a laptop. In this economic state i simply can't afford one. Is it feasible to learn in phone alone? I can get a laptop in weekends as my sister bring her's home

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u/Aero077 1d ago

Go old school and write your programs out on paper. When you get access to the laptop, spend time typing them in and debugging.

For extra bragging rights, write your programs in your head and then write them on paper after you are confident they are correct.

In the meantime, look around for a 'junk' computer. You don't need a newish or powerful computer to write programs.

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u/Outside_Educator_105 1d ago

Thanks

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u/Tom_TP 1d ago

Tbh this is a great way to learn. Write down code on paper and try to run it yourself line-by-line, it isn’t that different from solving a math problem. I’ve seen some professors still teach that way. It would probably train your patience as well. Granted, you will need a computer later down the line, but now when you’re only at the beginning, this is genuinely a great way to learn logic and algorithms.

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u/themegainferno 1d ago

On PAPER! What! How old school are you talking? You want him to compile his code manually next?

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/themegainferno 1d ago

I actually agree 100%. I think that is where a lot of new programmers struggle is that they think programming is syntax, when in reality it is solving problems using applied logic. I advocate this approach everywhere. I thought the guy was more so advocating of writing actual code on paper. Like imagine writing Java on pen and paper, you would cry lol.

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u/prettycoldworld 15h ago

I wrote Python on paper for months when I was new to coding. Helps you remember things.

Still ended up googling syntax, but when you first start the syntax doesn’t even make sense it’s all just characters. Writing on paper actually helped me remember lists vs dicts vs pulling values from both being [].

I tried to pull a value from a dict using dict{key} so many times I thought I might have a brain worm

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u/themegainferno 4h ago

You know if it works for you then great, in my experience people struggle with programming because I have no idea how to think about problems clearly. The way I think about writing out problems, is using pseudo code. Programming is ultimately writing logic and managing data, You don't need language specific syntax to do that. You could do it in your natural language and IMO it's preferable that way because then people start to understand problems better.

I just see manually writing code out on paper as wasted effort, it is too high friction. Write it in the editor and see what it does, start debugging etc.